Day 17 – Adels Grove to Karumba (451k’s)

This was our longest scheduled ride. We left Adels Grove around 7.30am but made slow progress for the first hour or so due to the amount of dust we churned up. As a result by the time we got to Gregory Downs we decided to abandon morning tea, which had developed into quite a ritual with Miles brewing coffee and Terry boiling his billy tea, and instead we kept on the road.

We travelled mostly on good dirt roads with some sealed sections, across typical Northern Australian open eucalyptus woodlands and broad stretches of grasslands. There were plenty of cattle on the road which we all managed to avoid. There were a couple of small water crossings at the start of the day but after that the river levels were low and the crossings were dry. Even though the dry season was only in its first month the land was already dry and the air temperature high.

Good roads meant we made rapid progress and we reached Normanton in time for lunch at the Purple Pub which served a pretty tasty lunch of barra burgers and steak sandwiches. Turning from adventurers into tourists again we stopped for photos of the 9 metre two tonne crocodile replica right in Normanton’s main street and Liam obligingly posed for a few shots, no doubt in the hope that they might help him persuade a naïve backpacker or 2 that he is a mighty outback adventurer.

Just out of Normanton we saw an unusual sight, huge lagoons filled with waterlilies in flower.

From Normanton it was a short ride to Karumba Point where we are staying the night. From the pub beer garden we were able to observe with some amusement Eastern Stater’s gathering at sunset to photograph the sun setting into the sea (just like in WA!) although this time it was the Gulf of Carpenteria not the Indian Ocean.

A small disaster in Karumba when Les and Stuart managed to lose 2 swags off the roof of the Ute. By the time they had realised they were missing and retraced their steps there was no sign of them. Fortunately there was enough spare sleeping gear to replace what had been lost so we were able to avoid a major problem.